A/N: And this is the final chapter of this story! Thank you all so much for sticking with it!

A/N2: And yes, I have now finished two stories in rapid succession. And no, for once I'm not planning on starting three things to replace them. And yes, I know I've started 'Eye for an eye' but as that's on a strict timetable it doesn't count. Anyway, for now on, I'm going to focus on the things I already have started.

A/N3: For InSilva. Of course.

Two weeks and Danny was beginning to breathe again.

The last two months had been a nightmare. Literally, in many ways. Call him naive, but back when they'd first got the idea to get out, back when his Mom had first decided she'd had enough, he'd honestly thought that they would just live happily ever after. No more pain. No more fear. Not ever.

Instead he'd found himself watching as Rusty suffered and shut him out a bit at a time.

The first time he'd had the nightmare had been the night after he'd come home to find no sign of Rusty. And he hadn't been bothered at first – he'd just figured that Rusty was out somewhere. But as the hours went by the worry set in and he'd gone looking. Eventually he'd found Rusty shivering on a park bench, his eyes distant and exhausted, and Danny had seen that look in Rusty's eyes so many times before. He didn't have answers. All he had been able to do was take Rusty home, make sure he was safe, and when he'd asked the next day...Rusty hadn't really told him anything. Not anything that added up.

And he'd watched and worried and there wasn't anything he could put his finger on, and he'd been left constructing his own scenarios.

And at night he dreamed them.

Perhaps it was inevitable he dreamt of Mom coming for them. After all, he thought about that a lot. Because she'd said she never wanted to see him again, but she'd given him until he was eighteen. And he wasn't eighteen, not quite, not yet. Suppose she'd been planning on changing her mind? Maybe she could legally force him to come back. Maybe she could legally take Rusty away from him. It was a plausible nightmare.

So he dreamt and he woke, terrified, and he went and checked on Rusty, needing to be sure that Rusty was still here, still real.

And life went on like that and things got worse, and the morning that he found Rusty battered and bruised was among the worst in his life.

He'd figured that was as bad as things could possibly get.

Then Rusty had been arguing with him, screaming at him, telling him that he didn't want to be with Danny anymore, that everything they had was over. Harsh words and cruel taunts, and just because he'd been able to hear the lie didn't mean that it hadn't hurt.

It had.

Oh, it had hurt so fucking much. So much worse than anything his Mom had ever said.

But it would never make a difference to the way he felt about Rusty. He doubted that anything could make a difference to the way he felt about Rusty.

And then Rusty was just gone. Run away.

Had been ten minutes before Danny had realised and then he'd been charging down the stairs, already a life time too late.

He'd found the liqour store. Heard that Rusty had left with a bunch of older younger kids. And he'd heard that Rusty had bought a bottle of whisky and although he hadn't been happy about it, he'd also been relieved, imaging that Rusty would get drunk and come back.

That first night he'd phoned round all Rusty's friends from school, talking to them, talking to their parents, some pretext about homework and none of them had the slightest clue where Rusty was. He'd moved on to calling others, Mike from their old high school, professional connections they'd made in the past few months, new pretexts and stories and he hadn't dared share truth, and still he'd got nothing.

After that he'd moved on, searching the streets, starting with the likely and the close by, places that Rusty might go if he wanted to be alone, if he needed space.

Four days. And it was twelve hours before he started thinking about checking the hospitals and the police stations but if he did that...if he did that, eventually someone would ask what a seventeen year old and a fifteen year old were doing living together, and then everything they'd worked for would be over.

And Rusty was missing and part of Danny thought he should call the police, call for help, but he couldn't.

He was alone.

Going back had been the last resort. He couldn't imagine why Rusty would go back to his Dad, but he'd looked everywhere else, and he'd been cursing himself for waiting four days when Rusty had come back. Because if Rusty had been with his Dad, four days would have been an infinity of too long.

It had been anyway. And now Danny needed every second of reassurance and reconnection, just as much as Rusty did.

They'd gone away for a couple of days, just like Danny had suggested. Working on little more than instinct, but it had seemed like a good idea to get Rusty away from the place that would remind him of remembering.

And yeah, they should be being more careful as far as Rusty's school was concerned, their life was kind of precarious and they had to avoid attention, but next to keeping Rusty whole and sane – it was an acceptable risk.

He'd made a phonecall, forged a doctor's letter concentrated on being mature and grave at the same time, and it seemed as though they were satisfied. And he'd made a point of asking for all the schoolwork Rusty had missed, and they'd spent a dull evening just going through it, making sure it was perfect and up to date. The school would have nothing to complain about.

But before that, they'd taken a trip up to the mountains. A luxury hotel, their own secluded cabin, and maybe they weren't the wealthy heirs of a wealthier oil baron that they were pretending to be, but their money was just as good as if they were.

The first day they'd spent talking. Or Rusty had spent talking. All the memories, all the little moments of pointless brutality, and Rusty had talked steadily for hours.

Hadn't been the most difficult thing Danny had ever had to listen to. But it had been up there, and even though he'd heard so much of it before, he'd had to fight to keep the horror away from his face. And he'd listened and he hadn't been able to help imagining how easy it would be to get his hands on a gun. How easy it would be to go back, jump in a car instead of going to college some morning, wait until the bastard was asleep or passed out and put a dozen bullets into his head. It would be easy. And it would be right.

He listened to Rusty's recount his life and he listened as Rusty's voice grew hoarse with emotion and pain and anger.

Plenty to be angry about. So much to be angry about. And Danny had let Rusty be angry. And he'd heard all that undertones as Rusty desperately tried to find a reason for it all.

"There was no reason," he said at last, when Rusty was finished. "There was never any reason."

There never could be any reason.

Rusty had looked at him for a long moment. "That's it," he said with quiet intensity. "I'm done with the past. I'm not gonna talk about it ever again."

Danny nodded. "You don't have to," he agreed carefully. "But Rus', if you ever need to...if you ever want to – "

Rusty was smiling at him and somehow he was standing in front of Danny now, clasping his hands. " – I know. Oh, Danny, I know. And I'll never shut you out again."

"Better not," he said breathlessly, with a tight smile of his own, and maybe he wasn't exactly sure Rusty would always be able to keep his promise, but he knew Rusty would try.

Rusty studied him carefully and his eyes were full of sympathy and of course Rusty would know how difficult it was for Danny to listen to that.

"Thank you," Rusty said softly.

He smiled and leaned forwards and pressed his lips to Rusty's forehead. "Don't thank me."

The next day and there was inexplicable winter sports on the TV, and they sat in front of the TV and made bets on who was going to fall over next.

In the evening they lit the log fire – well, Danny lit the log fire, after a brief but spirited discussion about who got to play with matches – and they lay back and lazily toasted marshmallows.

"You know," Danny commented thoughtfully, breaking a lingering, comfortable silence. "I should remember this place. Seems like it would be a great place to impress girls."

"You're not impressive enough in your own right?" Rusty asked with interest, licking gooey marshmallow off his fingers.

He grinned. "Beats the drive thru, anyway."

There was another few moments of silence and this was less comfortable and he could see that Rusty was hesitating around the edge of something.

"What?" he asked, with gentle encouragement.

Rusty looked at him earnestly. "I kept my promise, Danny," he said and then he must have caught sight of Danny's confusion, because he went on. "When I was away. I was pretty out of it, but I was careful. And I...made sure everyone who needed to be was careful."

Oh. Danny flashed a quick smile of understanding and reassurance. And yeah, of course, he was glad that Rusty had remembered his promise, and what's more he believed Rusty when he said that nothing had happened that he hadn't wanted. It was just that from a couple of things Rusty had said, from the marks he'd seen on Rusty's body that night, (and he couldn't quite suppress the mental snarl at the memory) at least some of Rusty's...partners...had been adults, and they might see themselves as adult but that wasn't what other people saw. And when Rusty had come home, he'd been more than out of it. And maybe Rusty was okay with the picture all this painted, but Danny wasn't so sure he was. Danny thought that somewhere out there there was someone...maybe a bunch of someones...who had knowingly taken advantage. And he wanted to explain that was a bad idea.

And more than that, because the image, the memory of Rusty confused and vulnerable, all self-control gone – it terrified him. "What did you take, anyway?" he asked as casually as he could, because he had to know what he might be dealing with, had to know what he should be looking for.

The look in Rusty's eyes told him that he hadn't been anywhere near casual enough. "I'm not going to do that again, Danny," he promised gently. "No more drugs, I swear. I didn't like it."

"Good," he said, and he let out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding.

Rusty grinned. "So you reckon if we melt all the chocolate in the minibar we'll have fondue?"

The time away had been what they'd needed. Four days spending every last moment in each others company and he'd watched Rusty relaxing a little more each day, watched as the tension unwound, the fear and anger faded.

And even after they got home, there were a few changes to the routine. Sleeping in the same room – the same bed – and Danny's nightmares all-but vanished. Rusty's didn't disappear completely, but they were less frequent and Danny was right there to offer comfort and reassurance.

Wasn't forever. But right now, it made things better.

And he made sure he went straight home after college, wanting to spend as much time with Rusty as possible, not wanting to leave Rusty alone.

"You shouldn't," Rusty had said, once he'd figured that part of the plan out. "Normal life, remember? 's what we're aiming for. You're supposed to be making friends. Having a life."

Danny looked at him in silence, thinking of the four days Rusty had been missing, and how alone and terrified he'd been. "I'm never going to meet any friends I care about more than you," he pointed out levelly. "I want to do what I want to do."

They spent every moment they could together and their parents, their old life, seemed so far away now. Just like it should be.

And yes, Danny was watching Rusty carefully. Looking for the signs in Rusty that Rusty had seen in himself. Looking for the beginnings of sickness.

He didn't see anything. He wasn't surprised.

He knew Rusty better than he knew himself, and he sure he would have known, would have seen.

And they'd talked before, about their parental legacy, and he'd sworn that Rusty would never be his father every bit as fiercely as Rusty had promised Danny that he'd never be his father. Danny had never considered that Rusty might be afraid of the more concrete inheritance his mother represented.

It was never going to happen. He was sure of that. And as the days went past and Rusty grew calmer, he offered the assurance and comfort of his certainty every day.

Every moment, waking or sleeping. And it wasn't forever, it didn't need to be forever, and once they felt just a little more secure, things would drift closer to normal.

But right now they were together.

Happily ever after was just a matter of time.